


Something Worth Fighting For

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Genre: Loyalty, M/M, Pining, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 03:01:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17051822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: Forsyth wishes he knew what Python thinks is worth fighting for, when he claims it's nothing at all. Sometimes the question keeps him up at night.Forsyth himself fights for his love of country, for his deep desire to earn his place as a knight... but sometimes, in secret, he thinks about one more reason he has to fight his hardest.





	Something Worth Fighting For

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SaraJaye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaraJaye/gifts).



In their tent, where Python had helped strip him of his armor, had pretended to complain all the while, Forsyth sits up, unable to sleep. 

 

Python has no trouble, never does when he’s not out carousing… He’s dozing against Forsyth’s side, his breathing deep and even, his face softened by sleep.

 

Forsyth doesn’t understand him sometimes. He doesn’t seem to believe in knighthood as an ideal-- how could he not? What could be a higher duty? But he is here. He could have chosen something else… with the world falling apart around them, he could have left at any time. Not that Forsyth could have understood or approved of such a choice, but he can’t understand why Python stays. He always says he doesn’t believe, always says he’d be better off somewhere else, always says that Forsyth is an annoyance he is so heavily put-upon by, and yet…

 

And yet he is here. Sharing Forsyth’s tent, sleeping with his cheek to Forsyth’s shoulder, and his sleep so deep and untroubled even with the horrors they face…

 

Why does he do it?

 

Forsyth knows why he does what he does, what he fights for. But what of Python?

 

Python…

 

He does wish he would take things more seriously. He is at once both somehow uncaring of their cause and too willing to throw himself into the heat of battle. Nag though he might, Forsyth doesn’t know what he would do, if…

 

It doesn’t bear thinking about. He could lose anyone else. He could watch his commander on and soldier forward in the name of his cause and shed a tear when it was safe, but Python, Python… to lose him would be to lose all. All hope, all happiness, when did Python become all that to him?

 

Python, hair the color of the heart of the sea and soft as silk when Forsyth’s cheek rests there, his breath warm, his hand resting heavy over Forsyth’s abdomen… Python, maddening and yet here, always here, fighting in the thick of it in spite of the conditions, and Forsyth just can’t seem to figure it out at all. What does he stay for? What does he fight for? If not their country, then what? What in all of this world means so much to Python that he does this, when he claims he believes in nothing?

 

Forsyth reaches up, thumb tracing over a healed cut, a thin white line. A healer’s magic had erased much of the damage to that beloved face, only… Only Forsyth hadn’t seen it happen… he shall have to keep a closer eye on him when next they meet the enemy. He shall have to see it doesn’t happen again. Healers are in short supply, and most injuries on the battlefield are far from minor, and he…

 

No.

 

And he will not lose Python. He will absorb a thousand blows himself before that ever happens, he shall..

 

He shall protect him. He needn’t speak of it to do it. He doesn’t know what Python would make of him if he did speak of it. He would… he would laugh, or he would insist he did not need Forsyth’s protection, he would…

 

He wouldn’t understand his devotion. Forsyth himself cannot understand it. He would laugh, and rightly so, if Forsyth were to say that sometimes, when they share a tent like this, with his armor piled in the corner and Python sleeping so easily while Forsyth himself sits up, that he imagines… 

 

He imagines, on nights like this, that he does not fight for crown and country. That he is a true night who follows a headstrong and impetuous young lord. That he protects him even as he sleeps, and that he lives and breathes for him alone. A ridiculous notion! He could never sustain the fantasy throughout the day, and Python would… he wouldn’t appreciate the role these fantasies cast him in. He would remind Forsyth that they are not noble, not even noble enough to imagine being the knight in his lord’s steadfast service, let alone noble enough to play the part of master. 

 

Python, who believes nothing and follows nothing, how should it be that Forsyth would follow him into death and into slaughter? And yet the fantasies spin deeper and richer every night that Python spends by his side. How he would kneel before him awaiting a word, how he would protect him from harm, how he would expect nothing in return except to be allowed to show his love in this way, his pure and perfect love. A love which asks nothing except to serve, as he serves their country, as he serves their commander. He would extend that same selfless love to Python if only he could. 

 

But if it is love he does feel for Python, it is not pure and perfect as his love of country. It may be freely given with no expectation of return, but still he burns… he burns for a look or a touch which might be exchanged between them during the day. He burns for the chance to speak his feelings, and he knows he cannot. The words would come out wrong, the words always come out wrong. He means to say something kind and he is critical, or if he manages not to be, Python has come to expect that criticism and is combative at the start, and then there is no mood to speak of softer things, of protection, of devotion, of the rich tapestry of his fantasies at night.

 

He ought to sleep. In the morning they march again. He must be well-rested if he is to serve lord and country with his full might, to ever dream of attaining recognition for his hard work and devotion. He must be, if he hopes to protect Python, that wild show off… And he must protect Python. 

 

Perhaps someday he will be able to ask, what it is that Python truly fights for, when in spite of himself he gives his all.


End file.
